Governorates of Jordan

Jordan is divided into 12 governorates (muhafazah) by the administrative divisions system of the Ministry of Interior. In 1994, four new governorates were created: Jerash, Ajloun, Madaba and Aqaba. Jerash Governorate and Ajloun Governorate were split from Irbid Governorate, Madaba Governorate was split from Amman Governorate and Aqaba Governorate was split from Ma'an Governorate.

Geography

Geographically, the governorates of Jordan are located in one of three regions: the North Region, Central Region and the South Region. The three geographical regions are not distributed by area or populations but rather by geographical connectivity and distance among the population centres. The South Region is separated from the Central Region by the Mountains of Moab in Karak Governorate. The population centres of the Central and North Region are separated geographically by the mountains of Jerash Governorate. Socially, the population centres of Amman, Salt, Zarqa and Madaba form together one large metropolitan area in which business interactions in these cities are under the influence of Amman while the cities of Jerash, Ajloun, and Mafraq are mostly under the influence of the city of Irbid.

Map of the governorates of Jordan

Governorates of Jordan
	Governorate	Area[1] (km²)	Population[2]	Urban[2]	Rural[2]	Density[1] (people/km²)	Capital
1	Irbid	1,572	1,137,100	943,000	194,100	723.4	Irbid
2	Ajloun	420	146,900	111,500	35,400	350.1	Ajloun
3	Jerash	410	191,700	120,100	71,600	467.8	Jerash
4	Mafraq	26,551	300,300	117,800	182,500	11.3	Mafraq
	North Region	28,953	1,776,000	1,292,400	483,600	61.3
5	Balqa	1,120	428,000	307,400	120,600	382.0	Salt
6	Amman	7,579	2,473,400	2,325,500	147,900	326.3	Amman
7	Zarqa	4,761	951,800	899,800	52,000	199.9	Zarqa
8	Madaba	940	159,700	114,000	45,700	170.0	Madaba
	Central Region	14,400	4,012,900	3,646,700	366,200	278.7
9	Karak	3,495	249,100	87,200	161,900	71.3	Al Karak
10	Tafilah	2,209	89,400	63,800	25,600	40.5	Tafilah
11	Ma'an	32,832	121,400	66,600	54,800	3.7	Ma'an
12	Aqaba	6,905	139,200	119,700	19,500	20.2	Aqaba
	South Region	45,441	599,100	337,300	261,800	13.2
	Total	88,794	6,388,000	5,276,400 (82.6%)	1,111,600 (17.4%)	71.9

See also

• Nahias of Jordan
• List of cities in Jordan
• ISO 3166-2:JO

References

1. "Estimated Population of the Kingdom, Area (Km2) and Population Density by Governorate, at End-year 2012" (PDF). Department of Statistics - Jordan. 2012. Retrieved 27 December 2013.
2. "Estimated Population of the Kingdom by Urban* and Rural, at End-year 2012" (PDF). Department of Statistics - Jordan. 2012. Retrieved 27 December 2013.